Kettle's Boyled: Are we mollycoddling a whole generation?

I was listening to one of the national radio stations one morning about a month ago. ‘Half-listening’ is probably more accurate; the radio can be on in the background without getting my full attention, unless a particular item grabs my interest. This was fairly classic wallpaper radio, pumping out the kind of relatively meaningless chatter that seems designed largely to fill the spaces between adverts.

On that particular morning the conversation between the presenter and a contributor was, I think, about students returning to school. I’m guessing that bit, because I wasn’t paying much attention until their blathering cut through my reverie and I realised what they were talking about. My attention piqued, I started to become aware of the detail. I laughed at first, thinking for a minute they were involved in a satirical piece, but as they rabbited on I realised they were serious.

The gist of the conversation concerned the best way to encourage a teenager to study in the evenings after school. Apparently, if you are to believe these experts, you should redecorate the said teenager’s room in a style and a shade that might encourage them to do a bit of work. You should decorate their boudoir in soft colours to provide a calm, restful space. The additional development of a ‘cosy corner’ with a desk and a comfortable chair will, apparently, assist the process further.

The notion that the listenership all have children with individual bedrooms large enough to facilitate a dedicated study area, complete with office furniture and a budget to redecorate them at enormous expense, is a long way from the world most of us know. What happened to the kitchen table, the place where my generation did their homework under the single light that was in use to light the entire space? Why can’t youngsters sprawl on their beds to read schoolbooks, instead of needing these calming spaces? Are we rearing a generation of absolute wimps, a generation that will never be able to handle any kind of multi-tasking or noisy environment without running to their mothers with a demand to get the painters in?

Go back a bit further and young people studied by the light of a candle in front of an open fire, the only place warm enough in houses of that era. Bedrooms had ice on the inside of the windows in the mornings, and were far too cold to sit around in at any time. Yet people managed, and maybe they were the stronger and more capable because of it.

If a young person only encounters a bit of adversity after they have left school and left home, they won’t be able to cope. And if they can’t focus on study, take away their phones. They used to say that paper doesn’t refuse ink, but radio in turn clearly doesn’t refuse rubbish.